{"id":2740,"date":"2012-06-23T12:00:26","date_gmt":"2012-06-23T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=2740"},"modified":"2012-06-22T10:33:20","modified_gmt":"2012-06-22T10:33:20","slug":"megan-watkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/megan-watkins\/","title":{"rendered":"Megan Watkins"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Finalists<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One of them has the sensation that her breasts need milking<\/p>\n

though it is decades since she lactated, a green lance grows<\/p>\n

through her, she feels skin-covered<\/p>\n

but no more human\u00a0 than a yurt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

One man has started to sway. He aims and misses and his laughter<\/p>\n

is high-pitched with altitude sickness,<\/p>\n

for the first time since he stopped rowing his low centre of gravity<\/p>\n

is a disadvantage, his width too soft to use as a shield.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The other smiles over and over, smiles at the camera<\/p>\n

as if it is coming towards him down a\u00a0 tunnel\u00a0 with a knife.<\/p>\n

When he wipes away the sweat he can\u2019t feel his forehead or his hand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

During the firework display two people collapse and the crowd shakes<\/p>\n

as it looks up at the black sky on fire, its mouths open and its eyelids<\/p>\n

the texture of burnt\u00a0 encyclopedia.<\/p>\n

They were promised vouchers but don\u2019t ask,<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

from an excess of trust or fear of forfeit, jettisoning<\/p>\n

familiar faces, provincial currency, buttons.<\/p>\n

It is only as the Finalists grow weaker that they begin<\/p>\n

to return, though when asked<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1. the precise, and 2. the relative<\/p>\n

value of coins or faces, under duress,<\/p>\n

they can\u2019t exactly recall.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Megan Watkins<\/strong>‘ poetry is published in Smiths Knoll, Brittle Star, Rhino 2011<\/em> and Fourteen Magazine<\/em> and online at Sentinel<\/em> and Gloom Cupboard<\/em>. She studied Fine Art and is currently working with the artist Audrey Reynolds on “Udrey & Egan, an artists book of poetry and prose.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Finalists   One of them has the sensation that her breasts need milking though it is decades since she lactated, a green lance grows through her, she feels skin-covered but no more human\u00a0 than a yurt.   One man has started to sway. He aims and misses and his laughter is high-pitched with altitude […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2740"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2743,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2740\/revisions\/2743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}